Considering growing number and role of regional organizations during the last two decades, in particular regarding peace, security, development and the prevention or decrease of conflicts, some people argues the 21st century as the era of regionalism in contrast the 19th and the 20th centuries as nationalism and imperialism centuries. Nowadays, regional integration has become one of the main concerns of governments. Despite cooperative behavior among regional organization’s member states, there are also rivalries and competitions that cause divergence and the failure of regional organizations. Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) as a regional organization in South west Asia that founded in 1985 suffers from lack of success. It seems that one of the important factors of inefficiency and failure of ECO is the existence of geopolitical competition, which contains competitive behavior between the member states of the organization in order to gain advantages based on Geography, Politics and Power elements in one or more specific areas.

The present study identifies geopolitical competition in regional organizations, including identifying and defining the components and elements of competition, relationships between them and finally presentation model of geopolitical competition within regional organizations with emphasis on ECO. The research method is descriptive and analytical; method for data collection is a literature review and survey (questionnaire).

International organizations appeared in the nineteenth century, expanded in the twentieth century, and become important players having direct and indirect effects on all global interactions in the twenty-first century(Shahabi and Shikoleslami, 2007: 140). “The number of conventional international organizations increased from 213 in1909 to 6076 in 1999 and then in 2013 this number reached to 8842. From this number, 6878 cases (about 78 percent) are regional organizations (UIA, 2013, 33-35).” Nowadays regionalism and regional cooperation provide a suitable platform for strengthening of the power of national governments, therefore many countries are seeking their multilateral development through regional cooperation and joining to regional organizations and unions consider as a necessary action.

Despite increasing numbers of regional organizations in recent years, it is necessary to notice that due to the establishment of a regional organization, the goals of a regional organization may not be achieved, unless converging forces overcome to divergent forces. Especially in case of economic regional organizations, should notice that although trade and commerce could create a context for an alliance and the formation of regional organization, but the same trade and commerce logic can cause serious competition among regional organization’s member states. This situation leads to other aspects of competition and ultimately disturbs the cooperation process among member states.

Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is a regional economic organization which was formed in 1985, in reality replaced Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD) that was founded by Iran, Turkey and Pakistan in 1964. In 1992 ECO accepted 7 new members (Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan) and its members increased to 10. “According to article II of Treaty of Izmir (primary charter of RCD), promotion of trade among member countries through freer access to each other’s markets, helping to boost global trade and efforts to eliminate unfair trade policies through the adoption of a common approach in the international community, are some of the goals of this organization(Economic Cooperation Organization Secretariat, 2017).” “In 1996, the volume of intraregional trade among ECO members was 8.6 percent of their total trade volume, but in 2005 this ratio decreased to 6.5 percent(Shahabi and Shikoleslami, 2007: 146).”

One of indicators that used by experts to evaluate the performance of regional cooperation is the volume of intra-regional trade and this indicator can be a good measure to evaluate the success of such organizations in achieving predetermined goals. In evaluation of success of ECO, this fact cannot be ignored that what has been achieved, do not match with desires, visions and predictions of founders and other members of the organization and also not proportionate with capacity and potentials of the region.

It seems that geopolitical competition between the member states of ECO is one of the major reasons of lack of success of this organization. Geopolitical competition is behavior coupled with competition between players in order to gain superiority based on three elements: Geography, Power and Politics in one or more specific subject.

The present research seeks to investigate and identify this issue that: “despite regional organizations establish with aim of cooperation and expansion of relations among members, what factors cause geopolitical competition and following that increase of divergence and disputes and consequently in inefficiency of regional organizations?” In particular the research question is: “What is the role of Political, Economic, Geopolitical and Cultural issues in geopolitical competition among ECO member states?”

ECO is one of the major regional organizations in southwest Asia, the region that suffers from various difficulties like poverty, radicalism, violence, war etc. therefore, any study helping improve the efficiency and performance of regional organizations and cooperation is in direction to the national interests of the countries of the region. The present study aimed to investigate the geopolitical competition factors and their subgroup variables and finally present theoretical model of geopolitical competition with emphasis to ECO.

2. Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO)

“Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is an intergovernmental regional organization that established in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey for promoting economic, technical and cultural cooperation among the member states. ECO is the successor organization of Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD) which remained from 1964 to 1979(Economic Cooperation Organization Secretariat, 2017).” RCD was established to help the socioeconomic development of the member states based on historical, geographical and cultural ties. Domination bipolar system of international relations had an important impact on the creation and expansion of this organization.

Because of Islamic revolution in Iran and changes of regional geopolitical system in 1979, this organization was dissolved, but again in 1985, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey founded new organization that emphasized on common geography, history and culture. ECO was established to promote multi dimensional regional cooperation with a view to provide conditions for sustainable socioeconomic growth in the member states.

“In short time after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independence of republics of central Asia and Caucasus, because of long-standing cultural, religious and linguistic relations with Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, six of these republics; namely Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan along with Afghanistan became a member of ECO(Ibid). Figure 1 shows ECO member states map.”

Figure 1: Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) member states

Source: Economic Cooperation Organization Secretariat, 2017.

3. Theoretical concepts

3.1. Competition and Rivalry

Competition is a fundamental concept in all areas of life, and very important topic in political, economic, social, artistic, educational and etc. It seems impossible to imagine a world without competition. This concept associated with arena of other living organisms and even plants. Competition arises when two or more organisms trying to gain a greater share of a limited resource, such as food, space and etc.

“One of the most enduring interest in human societies is claimed and competition over control and management of land and resources. Individuals and interest groups at different levels are constantly competing with each other to expand their interests and seek to destabilize and change the existing order in favor of their own(Blacksell, 2006: 1).” Human aspect of competition covers a wide range of subjects such as individual competitions, sports, politics, business and etc. Competition has different degrees and severity, also become multi-faceted and multi-dimensional concept in political, economic and social processes.

The word “rivalry” is generally used synonymously with competition; rivals are simply actors in competition with one another(Wankel, 1972: 427-437), whether at the individual(Katila and Chen, 2008: 593-625), or organizational levels(Porter, 1980). “Rivalry is ubiquitous whenever social beings interact. Animals rival for mating partners, siblings for the attention of their parents, politicians for re-election. Rivalry is, though, not restricted to the interpersonal level. It spills over to the group level: gangs rival for local hegemony, ethnicities for sovereignty, and parties for votes(Smith, 1984: 248). Rivalry is thus studied in developmental and animal psychology, in social psychology and sociology, in administrative sciences and political science as well as in economics(Alcock, 1984: 293-294).”

“Rivalry is also ubiquitous in international relations: interstate rivalries such as the superpower rivalry of the Cold War, the India-Pakistan or the Near East rivalries are widely analyzed in the ‘enduring rivalries’ research program. Rivalries can be ordered hierarchically according to levels of analysis. In international relations, seven rivalry levels may be distinguished:

“Competition is everywhere, in nature and modern civilization alike, and thus has long been a topic of interest to researchers across the social sciences. Prevailing theoretical models within management, economics, and psychology view competition in structural terms – as a situation in which the objective outcomes of actors are opposed to one another; that is, the actors are vying for the same scarce resources(Deutsch, 1949: 129–152).” “At the macro level, competition and rivalry between countries is an issue that has important consequences in the international system and sometimes causes serious disputes and wars. 75 percent of military disputes and 83 percent of wars between countries happened in the case of competition between them(Valeriano, 2003: 30).” “Some forms of rivalry in the international system are as follows: (1) rivalry between two or more par powers, such as global or regional powers; (2) rivalry between two powers, such as first and second class powers; (3) Interventional rivalry, this type of rivalry formed between powers in a specific territory or country based on conflicting interests (4) economic rivalry for market access and raw materials(Hafeznia, 2006:370).” Figure 2 shows the pattern of relations between regional powers.

Fig 2: Model of relations between regional powers

Sourse: Hafeznia and Kavianirad, 2004: 105.

3.2. Regional organizations

Although issues like cooperation, convergence, divergence and conflict have always been in international relations, but in recent decades aspects and areas of these issues is far greater than in the past, because of advances in technologies and increasing mutual needs of countries. Increased interaction between countries and need for managing, coordinating and solving the facing problems in this regard, justified need to create institutions at different regional and international levels such as regional organizations (Figure 3 shows The role of regional integration in security and development).

“Regional organizations, i.e., international institutions set up by and with the participation of neighboring countries, can help overcome obstacles to regional cooperation. They can provide a framework for building trust for dialogue and for negotiations; a platform for establishing credible rules of engagement and for the sharing of benefits and costs; a capacity for technical analysis of regional cooperative strategies and for their implementation; a vehicle for pooling or attracting financial resources to support investments in regional infrastructure or to compensate losers; and an instrument for monitoring the implementation of agreements and settling disputes that may arise(Linn, and Pidufala, 2008: 4).”

Fig 4: Regional cooperation in different sectors and their inter-linkages

Source: UNESCAP, 2004: 26.

3.3. Hypotheses and Conceptual model

Based on the review of literature, in general 4 effective factors were identified in Geopolitical Competition among member states of regional organizations. It seems that these factors can also be effective about ECO; therefore, each of these factors is presented in the form of a hypothesis as follows:

H1: Political Factor has a positive and significant effect on Geopolitical Competition in ECO;

H2: Economic Factor has a positive and significant effect on Geopolitical Competition in ECO;

H3: Cultural Factor has a positive and significant effect on Geopolitical Competition in ECO;

H4: Geopolitical Factor has a positive and significant effect on Geopolitical Competition in ECO.

The effects of the 4 factors on geopolitical competition that proposed in the above four hypotheses and also the effective variation on each factor graphically shown as a conceptual model in Figure 5. The second order confirmatory factor models include four types of variables: Exogenous Variables (ξ), Endogenous Variables (ή), Observed variable (γ), Error of Observed variable (e).

Figure 5: Conceptual model

4. Materials and Methods

From an objective point of view, the present research is practical and developmental, on one hand to develop knowledge and theoretical concepts of geopolitical competition within regional organizations, on the other hand, especially presents a model for geopolitical competition in ECO to help improving performance and high efficiency of this organization. For this purpose, at the first step through literature review and relevant theories, 4 factors and their 18 subgroup variables identified that were effective on geopolitical competition in ECO (Table 1).

In the second step to determine the amount of effect and weight of each factor and variable, 100 item 5 point Likert scale questionnaire ranging from 1=No effect, 2= Minor effect, 3= Moderate effect, 4= High effect, 5= Very high effect was developed, then circulated among 150 respondents (75 academicians 75 official experts and specialists) in the fields of Political Geography, International Relations, Regional Studies, Economics and also officials that was familiar with the issues of regional organizations from Ministry Foreign Affairs, ECO headquarter and as well as experienced experts and managers of Iran Chamber of Commerce and ECO Chamber of Commerce. Finally, 138 questionnaires were received and after screening for Completeness, 130 questionnaires were found complete and suitable for analysis.

For analyzing of data IBM SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 24.0 software is used. To evaluate reliability of questionnaire for factor analysis, IBM SPSS 21.0 and Cronbach’s Alpha, KMO2, B.T3test are used. To evaluate the hypothesized factors, Equation Structural Modeling (AMOS) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis Method are used. Also the Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation method was applied. A few assumptions need fulfilling in order to use the ML method: reasonable sample size; the scales of the observed variables are continuous; the hypothesized model is valid; and the distribution of the observed variables is multivariate normal. The data of this research had these criteria.

The data collected from respondents on each factor was checked for reliability using IBM SPSS 21.0. The Cronbach’s Alpha computed for each variable were found to be higher than the desired value of 0.7 and are displayed in table 2 as below:

Table 2: Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability of the factors

Cronbach’s Alpha

Number of items

Political Factor

.859

28

Economic Factor

.809

25

Cultural Factor

.783

20

Geopolitical Factor

.836

28

All Factors

.907

100

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy test was applied to test the adequacy of the sample. The results of KMO applied to the value of KMO for all factors were above 0.5 indicating that the adequacy of sample size and normality of data. Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity was applied and the results indicate that the selected variables correlation is significant in factor analysis. Table 3 shows the results of KMO and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity.

Table 3: KMO and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity of the factors

KMO

Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity

Approx. Chi-Square

Sig.

Political Factor

.874

608.780

.000

Economic Factor

.790

319.531

.000

Cultural Factor

.763

269.347

.000

Geopolitical Factor

.806

380.657

.000

All Factors

.897

2029.778

.000

5.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (Geopolitical competition in ECO)

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) explains the relationship between latent variables and measured variables. The second-order confirmatory factor analysis model of geopolitical competition in ECO was performed using 4 loaded latent Political, Economic, Cultural, and Geopolitical factors and 18 loaded observed variables, also the second-order CFA of Geopolitical competition in ECO was performed using AMOS 24.0 and the results are shown in Fig. 6.

Table 4 provides the goodness of ﬁt indices for the model, the results indicates that the fitness of the model very good. The Normed Chi-Square value is (CMIN/df = 1.98) is less than 2, indicating very good model ﬁt. Comparative Fit Index (CFI= .933) and Tucker-Lewis index (TLI=.922) are also higher than the standard level of 0.9, and indicates excellent model ﬁt. Furthermore, Root Mean Squared Residual (RMR= 0.03) is close to zero, that indicates model ﬁt is very good. Also the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) is =.063, that is suggested to be less than the threshold of .07, that indicates model ﬁt is very good. Additionally, the Parsimonious Normed Fit Index (PNFI= .749) and Parsimonious Goodness-of-Fit Index (PGFI=.799) are higher than the suggested value of .05. All these values suggest a good ﬁt for the model.

The results of the effect of endogenous latent variables (ή) on exogenous latent variables (ξ) in table 5 show that political factor with a path coefficient of 0.798 and p-value> 0.05 (Sig= 0.000), economic factor with a path coefficient of 0.640 and p-value 0.000, cultural factor with a path coefficient of 0.747 and p-value 0.000, and geopolitical factor with a path coefficient of 0.859 and p-value 0.000 have positive and significant effect in geopolitical competition in ECO. Also the results showed that among the 4 factors, geopolitical factor has the greatest effect and economic factor has the least effect on geopolitical competition in ECO.

In Political factor: all 6 variables have high regression weights, as well as positive and significant effect (p < .000). Differences in political ideology variable with regression coefficients of 0.794 and Changes in international system conditions variable with regression coefficients of 0.768 are the highest effective variables. Nation-building process variable with regression coefficients of 0.624 is the least effective variable.

In Economic factor: Results show observed variables have strong loadings on the economic factor. The standardized loading for Lack of economic complementary variable is .781; for Types of economic systems variable is .762; for Shared resources variable is .643 and for Economic development level and the size of economy variable is .693. Also the effect of observed variability is significant (p>. 000).

In Cultural factor: effect of observed variable is significant (p>.000). Observed variables of Historical experience with regression coefficients of .727 and p < .000 and Civilizational belonging variable with regression coefficients of 0.641 and p < .000 respectively, have the highest and the least effective variables.

In general, results showed geopolitical factor and its subgroups variable (Balance of power) has the most effect on geopolitical competition in the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO).

6. Conclusion

Cooperation and confrontation have always been in international relations, but nowadays, due to the increased interaction between countries, aspects of these issues are far more than before. To manage and resolved such increasing issues various types of institutions such as regional organizations are created. Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) founded in 1985 in southwest Asia. Despite over 3 decades of its life, according to published documents, reports, books and articles, this organization has not been successful. It seems that one of the decisive factors of inefficiency and failure of ECO linked to geopolitical competition among its member states.

To investigate this issue, factors and variables of geopolitical competition were identified, including 4 factors and their 18 subgroup variables. To determine the effect of each factor and variables in geopolitical competition in ECO, Confirmatory Factor Analysis Method using AMOS software applied and the results showed a significant and positive effect of the 4 factors: Geopolitical factor with β = .859 and p < .000; Political factor with β = .798 and p < .000; Cultural factor with β = .747 and p < .000 and economic factor with β = .640 and p < .000; it means that all 4 hypotheses are supported. In general, based on the research findings, among the 4 factors, Geopolitical factor and among the 18 observed variables, Balance of power has the highest effect on geopolitical competition in ECO.

UNESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific). 2004: 26. Meeting the challenges in era of globalization by strengthened regional development cooperation. New York: UNESCAP. Available at: www.unescap.org/pdd/publications/regcoop/regcoop_full.pdf. Accessed Feb 18, 2017.

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